Archive for the ‘Norfolk and Western Railway’ tag

In a way, it’s surprising we don’t see more automobiles built in the style of locomotives. After all, some of the earliest steam cars of the 1800s had a lot more in common with steam locomotives than with later steam cars. Chalk it up, we suppose, to the evolutions of both automobiles and locomotives to meet vastly different requirements. That said, we do know of a few – Harry McGee’s trackless trains, the Owens Motor Sales Ford Special, and A.F. Sternad’s locomotive automobile – and we can add the one above to the list today.

Unfortunately, we don’t know much about it so far. Like the McGee and Owens cars, this one was built for promotional purposes: It seems the Norfolk and Western Railway wanted to drum up passenger business, which we’re sure had dwindled down to almost nothing after the introduction of the Ford Model T. Virginia Tech’s ImageBase, where we found these two photos, doesn’t provide much more, noting only that the photos come from the Norfolks and Western Railway’s public relations department’s archives.

Based on the wheels and general shape of the fenders, we’re going to take a wild guess and say the Norfolk and Western used a mid-1920s Buick as the basis for their rolling billboard. Anybody care to set us straight or elaborate on the history of the car(s) in these photos?